Gore: Fighting global warming is like fighting Nazis; Update: ToL scrubs its story of Nazi references

Ed MorrisseyPosted at 7:23 pm on July 7, 2009

Just when you think you’ve heard every stupid thing a politician can say, Al Gore swoops in to the rescue. Faster than one can say Manbearpig, Gore tells an audience in Oxford that the fight against global warming needs the same kind of commitment that Winston Churchill demonstrated against the Nazis in World War II. Unfortunately, the only troops we see in this fight all wear green jackets:

Al Gore today compared the battle against climate change with the struggle against the Nazis.

The former US Vice President said the world lacked the political will to act and invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill by encouraging leaders to unite their nations to fight climate change. …

Speaking in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment , sponsored by The Times, Mr Gore said: “Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War II.”

He added: “We have everything we need except political will but political will is a renewable resource.”

Consider this a slightly milder version of Paul Krugman’s Earth-treason argument. Gore isn’t quite calling skeptics traitors, but if politicians don’t stop listening to them, they will let the Nazis win. And we hate those guys, right?

Of course, this analogy suffers on several levels, including intellect and taste. World War II was not a debate over economic theories and governing philosophies, or even a difference of opinion on scientific hypotheses. The Nazis had more mundane concerns, like world domination and the extermination of the Jews. While Winston Churchill had warned about the Nazis for years and had been shunned for it by the British establishment as a war-monger, he had the political will to do something about the Nazis because the Nazis had begun attacking France and Great Britain. With guns, bombs, and real death, too, and not just hyperbole about a Waterworld future.

When advocates resort to this kind of hyperbole, it’s usually due to a lack of factual support to their arguments. Invoking the Nazis is about as hyperbolic as it gets. What’s next, the aliens from Independence Day?

Excelsior!

Update: The Times of London has now scrubbed all of the references to “Nazi” from its article at the link. Simon at Deceiver wonders “who got to them.” Apparently, the ToL doesn’t have the testicular fortitude to stand up to Gore and his disciples. Looks like a white feather is in order.

Update II: Simon managed to grab a screen cap of the header for the article, which they forgot to clean.